Family members of Henry Glover, who was shot by an NOPD officer in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, announced Saturday they are asking the state attorney general to look at recent actions of the Orleans Parish coroner.

The Glover family has asked for the coroner's office to classify the death of the man whose body was abandoned in a car set ablaze by another police officer, but Dr. Frank Minyard, the coroner, has said he has been unable to make progress, and this week he sought his own attorney general opinion about moving forward.

The Glover family has asked for the death to be ruled a homicide, with hopes that state prosecutors would pursue a murder case now that the officer who fired on Glover has been acquitted of federal civil-rights charges.

Minyard said in a phone interview that his office has been working hard to determine the manner of death, but it is having trouble because there is no forensic evidence that Glover was shot, even though the former officer, David Warren, has testified in two federal trials that he fired an assault rifle at Glover, a suspected looter the officer believed to be armed. Minyard emphasized that he felt bad for the family: "It's just a horrible situation."

The Glovers were accompanied Saturday by the state and local chapters of the NAACP, organizations that said they were committed to fighting for the state prosecution of Warren, who was acquitted by a federal jury on Dec. 11 in a retrial after an original conviction and sentence of 25 years.

The Rev. Ernest Johnson, president of the state conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said the organizations were going to ask Louisiana Attorney General James "Buddy" Caldwell about the "unlawful killing of Mr. Glover" and the "malfeasance" of the coroner for not having issued a ruling on the death.

"The coroner has a duty and a responsibility in the position that he serves, to go ahead and make a final decision," Johnson said. "This kicking the can down the street is kicking this family down the street."

The news conference, which was called on Monday, came two days after Minyard announced he was seeking an opinion from Caldwell's office on whether he could use non-forensic evidence, such as court testimony and photographs, to classify the death. The death is currently unclassified because of a lack of forensic evidence, the coroner has said, though he agreed to reopen the case last month following a protest held at his office by dozens of Glover supporters.

"Malfeasance? I'm sorry about that," Minyard said. "I've been trying for 40 years (as coroner) to do the right thing. I understand the family has been through a lot. I feel for them. We've got to do what's legal and what's right."

Following the storm, Minyard said, the remnants of Glover's body -- burnt bones that included no skull -- arrived in several plastic bags to the Orleans Parish coroner's makeshift office in St. Gabriel, where examiners were working to "make sense" of more than 1,600 Katrina victims.

"We were very lucky that the bones had a piece of living muscle tissue on the shoulder that we were able to get DNA from and that's how we identified this bag of burnt-out bones," Minyard said. "He was burned pretty badly."

Minyard said he consulted with several attorneys who could not instruct him on how to proceed because the situation was unprecedented. He added it was a "mistake" to tell the family that he would be able to reclassify the death within 10 days of the case being reopened.

"I thought this was like any other case that we have handled, and it definitely is not, because we have someone who in court records said that he shot the victim and there's just no evidence of that," Minyard said.

Glover's aunt, Rebecca Glover, said Saturday the family is determined to secure a homicide ruling so that District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro would have a stronger case -- and be more pressured -- to pursue a state charge against Warren.

"David Warren killed him but he walks around free," she said. "Henry is never going to walk free again - not in this life. I mean, I feel like the federal system failed us."

Along with the NAACP, the Glover family was joined Saturday by other groups: the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Deacon of Defense and Louisiana United International. The leaders invoked the words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose birthday is celebrated as a national holiday on Monday.

"We see an injustice being done here," said Ernest Marcelle Jr., of the SCLC. ""If he (King) would've been here today, he would tell us that statement, 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.'"